


when we fight, we bleed too

by malloc



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Gen, Loneliness, Reunions, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malloc/pseuds/malloc
Summary: Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss, and hope is actually a weapon pointed back at you. A character study for Roman, set when Roman and Peter see each other again for the first time in Season 2.





	when we fight, we bleed too

**Author's Note:**

> Listed gen but open to interpretation. Only proofed, no beta.

The doorbell rings.

Solicitors? Did the movers forget something? He hopes it’s not some welcome-to-the-neighborhood bullshit; there’s a reason why he’s kept a low profile since moving in, and anyone who’s missed that fact needs a stern warning. Except when Roman taps open the notification on his phone, checks the security feed for the front door, it’s that familiar stature, hunch, and hair that has him tensing, invisible hand clamping his throat.

Peter Rumancek, in the flesh. He hovers, waiting to be acknowledged from the bell, but all Roman can do is stare.

If he had to describe what he felt, he doesn’t know that he could really find the words. A painful ache throbs in his core, his veins running cold after flashing a few seconds of pleased warmth, before his mind remembers what Peter had done. But why would he ever be here? What could possibly bring Peter not only back to Hemlock Grove but to the doorstep of Roman’s new home?

While Roman’s mind races, Peter grows impatient. The rap against the door barely sounds before Roman’s thumb instinctively taps the approval for the security system. Thank God. The buzz drowns out the primitive sound before it raises Roman’s hackles. Knocking. Seriously? When there’s a fucking doorbell? Fucking gypsy. There’s no elegance in that. How unsophisticated. How plain. How boring. And yet his hand trembles as he replaces his mobile back into his pocket, a hope lingering in his mind.

He stands a simple, sartorial elegance at the top of the stairs, plain clothes echoing his power as they always have. Even dressed down, he’s always known how to set his shoulders back, chin dipped in passive discernment, as if he hasn’t any thoughts or words to offer toward the present moment. It’s the look that taught so many to fear, even when they thought little of him, a young, spoiled shit who understands nothing of the real world or real fear in their minds, a waste of life and money. Roman doesn’t know that they’re wrong about that, if his existence was ever worth the turmoil it brought to so many others, even his dear sister Shelley, except that Roman always has, and now always will, know a truer fear than the plebeians could ever imagine. He hates even that he sees so clearly now when the lies he told himself months before quenched so thoroughly his willing blindness to something he couldn’t control, regardless of his mother’s so-called guidance.

“Nice digs,” Peter jokes, as if a day hasn’t gone by. Roman’s mind churns, a deep part wishing it to be true, that they’d never parted ways, while the rest of him burns with a slowly building anger, a fiery rage imbued in his blood before he had even known sight.

When he doesn’t answer, Peter continues, “Look, I know things were bad when I split—”

“Fuck you.”

Bad, he says. Like it was all some simple thing, just bad or good. Like the whole of everything they’d experienced _together_ had been anything but the fucked up insane nightmare it had been. What Roman had endured had never been a choice. All was decided for him since birth, and here was Peter, born free, wild, a child of the natural law of existence dismissing the gravity and hopelessness Roman still fights with a single word: bad. He’d lost everything he’d ever truly loved in the span of days, and Peter says it so plainly, like a story in a children’s book. The hope sinks: Peter didn’t come back for Roman, to apologize or to make things right. Peter needed something else, and Roman didn’t want to hear it.

“Just. Hear me out.”

“Not interested.”

“Please.”

“We’re done.” Peter proved that the moment he entered and wasn’t immediately pleading forgiveness. Maybe it never mattered enough in the first place. It wasn’t like Peter had never understood Roman was a monster on the inside, even though they’d managed to move past it—or at least Roman thought they had. And monsters don’t deserve humanity, don’t need love or care. That’s how they’d even parted ways at all, Peter wanting to find anyone else less chaotic and unpredictable than Roman to fill that lonely gap. Letha of all people.

Peter steps forward, trying to appeal to Roman’s humanity, the humanity Roman had always given him so freely before but had been met by an empty trailer when he’d most needed it returned. “Lynda’s in jail.” _Ah._ “I need your help.”

Lynda. Of course. The only other thing in Peter’s life that the werewolf had really cared for. A loving mother who thought the world of him, something else that Roman had never had nor understood either, salt in a gaping wound. He’d wanted desperately to be part of that family too, to be dependable to them, a necessary participant in their lives. But Lynda had abandoned him too, likely in favor of whatever bullshit need Peter had to fulfill, miles away from Hemlock Grove. Not that Roman could ever blame her. Lynda was Lynda, the closest thing to a real mother he’d ever known, even if only for that short while, and it’s the love that Roman respects that guides her, that would make her lead Peter far, far away in the first place. But Peter hadn’t even fought it, it seems. He’d wanted it, embraced it.

“No.” The word comes out a lot smoother than it’d felt in his chest, the building pressure like a vice gripping him by the ribcage and trying to crush his organs.

Peter has the gall to look hurt. “Look. Be mad at me, but this is Lynda we’re talking about.”

Lynda. Yes. Make it about Lynda. _Like you’re not the one standing here talking to me._

“Sounds like she fucked up. Not my problem.” That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? Even Lynda would understand Roman’s reasoning. No PhD required for that one. Not that it stops the werewolf from trying to throw reason in Roman’s face anyway.

“She was always good to you. She’s not gonna make it in there.”

There’s no denying the first, and Roman doesn’t have his head so far up his ass that he isn’t aware. He didn’t have to be close to Lynda to feel her love. She was brash and rough around the edges, but she cared endlessly, felt deeply, and she was never afraid to show it. Volatile, some might say. But Roman knew without asking that it was all love. He sees the same in Peter too, that earnest care. If not in his face, then always lingering in his eyes. Why it hurts so much even now, really. Because Peter does care, oh, yes, does the man care so much. Just not about Roman.

The way it’s put doesn’t leave much to the imagination for Roman now. He knows what Peter wants, why Peter’s really here. He isn’t sure what hurts worse, that he’d let himself think it could be anything else or that he wanted it so badly that he’d let Peter inside his house, just in case there was even the slightest possibility that Peter had come back for him, Roman Godfrey.

“What do you want me to do about it?” An unmistakable waver slips through the cracks. These are lines of a novel Roman could write for every other interaction he has with a stranger that comes knocking on his door. This is the script that always plays, coy misunderstanding to dull the shock of reality.

_Steel your heart. You must steel your heart._

He lets his face slacken, numbing his nerves in preparation. Peter hesitates, eyes lowering. Roman doesn’t even need to hear the words to know what follows.

“I need money. To hire a lawyer.”

Peter says why, but why doesn’t really matter, does it? After all, the reason why Peter’s here isn’t to speak with Roman; it’s to speak with a Godfrey.

“So you came here to beg,” he coos, feigning the delayed realization even as genuine amusement finds him. Roman does nothing to hide it from his face, and he can sense the grimace under Peter’s skin. Now it’s Peter’s turn to steel himself.

The werewolf fights to keep his expression straight as he resists the obvious urge to gnash his teeth, to shout, to yell. They say flies prefer honey, and he knows if he wants anything out of Roman that he’d better damn will be polite, even when it hurts. The struggle on Peter’s face brings such an enthralling comfort.

“Can you please loan me $20,000? I’ll pay you back.”

Roman wonders how humiliating it’d be to have to ask anyone like this but reminds himself that he would never do the same himself. Not because of his silver spoon, but now in spite of it. The money continues to prove to be a convenience, but Roman is no wastrel these days. Even the house reflects his mindset, simplicity finding the greatest efficiency. Spartan, his mother called it. As if he’s wronged her by choosing a life far less glamorous. But he takes little for himself, only ever what is immediate, and leaves the rest for Nadia, as it was meant to be. Peter seems to miss the idea though, that, had it been only Lynda, Roman would have aided her without even the slightest blink. Lynda isn’t the problem though. Lynda isn’t the one asking.

“I always liked your mother. She baked cookies.” Served warm. With milk. And love. Using them as an excuse to pry into Peter’s and Roman’s lives through small talk, but Roman hadn’t minded because when she asked, it was because she worried for them both, wanted them to stay safe while they followed the compelling nature of the dreams they’d found themselves unable to escape from until it was too late. Nothing like Olivia, trying to worm her way into every corner of Roman’s existence, to weave her web and build her power through deceit and intimidation. Roman learned quickly after his father’s death that he was only a project for her, a pawn for her own future comforts and nothing more. Shelley’s treatment only made the tragedy all the worse, knowing while Olivia spoke of love and sacrifice, it was never really Roman’s feelings that concerned her until he couldn’t withhold the tears any longer. Cruelty at its finest, all subtle hues of emotion and existence drowned out by her designs for the future.

That Peter could have something so good and real as Lynda, and for Roman to have only glimpsed—

“My mother never baked cookies.” Not that Peter ever asked. Not that Peter ever cared.

“I can shoot you the dough.” Can, but won’t. Not like this, and certainly not this way and not for Peter. “I’m not gonna do that. I’m not giving you shit.”

Of course, Peter’s already ready to argue back. “Maybe you forgot I saved your life.”

How could he ever forget? It had been how Roman had thought they were bonded, thicker than blood itself, something new and different that couldn’t be replaced. He thought it meant he mattered somehow, that Peter wanted him around because he liked him. It’s a shame he saw it too late. Not that Peter hadn’t wanted him but that Peter had only kept him as a means to an end. Like now. Again.

“Shelley saved yours,” comes Roman’s own chide, a light reminder that whatever leverage Peter thinks he has doesn’t exist, especially with Shelley gone and Roman with no one else left at his side to fight for him. Just money, money that Peter wants.

“I think about her all the time.” Oh, Peter. Too little. Too late. “She might still be out there—”

“She died alone.” _No thanks to you._ The ache stains as he can’t stand still any longer. He needs to pace. He needs to shout. He starts down the stairs. He has no one anymore, not even Peter. Just him. Him and Nadia. Nadia who deserves anyone except him, the monster who destroyed everything good in her life, the monster no one loves and that everyone left behind.

“And when Letha died, and I needed you?” Peter, his last line of defense, the only man he could say volumes to without even parting his lips. He’d become someone Roman had realized he couldn’t live without, the fear ever present when danger finds the lycanthrope. Roman had thought it mutual, a connection that was special to them both that didn’t need question, just as it never needed words. But it wasn’t enough. _He_ wasn’t enough even after all he’d proved to Peter. His eyes sting. His throat clamps. “You tucked your dick between your legs and ran away like the little fucking bitch you are.”

So much for being polite. Roman knows he’s fighting a losing battle though. Not with the anger but with the sorrow.

He stops within an arm’s length of Peter. _Let him see the tears. Let him see the pain he’s left that he thinks he can brush aside._ Roman wants to grasp him by the shoulders, to shake him violently while demanding why. He doesn’t, and Peter studies him, finally understanding how deeply the damage bored into Roman’s existence. Peter’s lip trembles from realization.

Shamelessly, the CEO swipes under his nose to catch the faintest trail of snot daring to leak from his withheld tears. “Get out of my house,” he manages calmly, eyes averted to regain his composure. He only meets Peter’s gaze again once he knows he has control.

Peter’s tearing up too, desperation in his brow and regret in his eyes. “Roman, please.”

How absolutely delicious it is to watch Peter squirm under his gaze, clinging on with the last of what he has. _Good. He knows how it feels then._ Not that Roman feels satisfied. If anything, Peter hasn’t suffered enough, hasn’t really understood the pain he’s caused. But Roman is done hurting. He has control again, and there’s no sense wasting time on this pain any longer.

“Get out of my house,” he repeats calmly, the beast so far beneath the surface that Peter knows without words that he should have thought more carefully before speaking. One chance, and he’d blown it. That’s how much he’d meant to Roman, and that’s how much Peter hadn’t felt back.

Peter’s lip trembles again, knowing this is the end of it, the end of them. Roman hopes he hates himself for it too.

A swallow and a then single tear falls, Peter moving to leave. Roman hears the plip against Peter’s jacket, reveling silently in the other man’s distress. _Suffer._

And Peter does.


End file.
